Ceramics is one of the oldest art forms in Japan. Since the 4th century it was often highly influenced by Chinese aesthetics and techniques, but the Japanese came to develop a distinct style of unglazed high-fired stoneware that embraced varied tones and textures rather than striving for the high-glaze perfection of Chinese porcelain. This rustic appeal of the Japanese ceramics has become one of the defining examples of the wabi-sabi philosophy that locates beauty in the humble, irregular, impermanent and incomplete, striving to resemble the harmony of things in nature.

Now in his seventies, Kosho Ito was trained in traditional Japanese ceramics and seamlessly took his knowledge and skill into an experimental art practice. He is well known for his large-scale installations that comprise many small clay formations composed as a whole on the gallery floor. Mirroring elemental life forms like cocoons, seeds or primal organisms, the individual pieces are always similar, but no two are ever the same.

Working only with his hands, the artist’s focus in on the raw material. He tries to minimize the effect of human intervention by following what the clay wants to do, and as a result the shapes appear to have developed through their own natural processes. Meticulously arranged together, the final compositions are often mandala-like in their circular forms and temporality.

A major retrospective, Kosho Ito Works 1974-2009 – Order and Chaos, was recently held at the Museum of Contemporary At Tokyo, focusing on how Ito’s work has always shown that chaos exists inherently in order, and vice versa.

[Images: 1. Folds of Clay – Blue Freeze, 2007. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Yoshitaka Uchida. 2. Instillation photo from Kosho Ito Works 1974-2009 – Order and Chaos, Museum Contemporar Art, Tokyo. 3. Kino-Niku, Tsuchi-no-Ha, 1991. Courtesy Takamatsu City Museum of Art. Photo: Yoshitaka Uchida. 4. Kino-Niku, Tsuchi-no-Ha II, 1993. Courtesy Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art. Photo: Yoshitaka Uchida. 5. Eros of Alumina (White Solidities are...), 1984. Courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. Photo: Yoshitaka Uchida. 6. Feldspar Terrain No.2 (Imported Soil Series), 2000. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Tadasu Yamamoto. 7. Instillation photo from Kosho Ito Works 1974-2009 – Order and Chaos, Museum Contemporar Art, Tokyo. 8. Portrait of Kosho Ito.]